Primary Health Care and Population Mortality

Population health management is being increasingly adopted by health systems yet the importance of primary health care in influencing population mortality and the mechanisms that explain it are not well understood. Too often, primary health care is regarded as a service for minor health problems and for managing access to secondary care. This limited view is no longer tenable and it is time to be much more ambitious about the place of primary health care in health systems worldwide.

In delivering and planning health care and in re-building health systems after the pandemic, practitioners and policymakers in low-, middle- and high-income countries need evidence on how primary health care affects population mortality and practical advice to effect change. Primary Health Care and Population Mortality fulfils this need. Drawing on his long experience as both a practitioner and researcher, the author Richard Baker describes how primary health is crucial to the effect of health systems on population mortality, including its potential for reducing inequalities in mortality.

This accessible new book will provide invaluable to leaders in service development and delivery, academics in primary health care and those working within international organisations that are promoting primary health care for improving population health. It will also be of practical value to general practitioners, primary health care nurses and managers, and public health staff.